The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-04-01
TO THE RUM MAKER.

morning, around the family altar, you
breathe Christians thanksgiving, and
utter supplicant's prayer, your whisky
is busily at work opening hundreds Of
mouths with bitter curses. On the
Sabbath day, thank God, that long
broad, gloomy stream of upward smoke
from your distillery, which reminds
men that pass by your town of the
smoke of the torment of the pit, is
allowed to rest, and Lawrenceburgh
has pure air for one day in the week.
On this blessed morning, the Sundays
heated still begins to cool-on this only
day the fifty barrels 90 untitled OF
whisky. But as you turn your steps to
the church, to partake of its refresh
ment and worship, how many are there
who have been drunk all night on your
whisky, and whose heads yet reel with
the fumes, and will reel until they ''seek
it again" While you look Heaven
ward, they tend hellward.
Oh, sir, do you ever 90 to the com.
munion table? Do you ever sit down
in humble penitence to take those
affecting symbols of Him who, for youl
sake, became poor, was broken, cruel
fed? Even while the consecrated wine
is upon your lips, your whisky is still
at work in some Bacchanal crew, who
disturb the stiffness of the day with
oaths, disappearing Him in whom you
trust for salvation, and whose death
you commemorate!
What if you should sit down in the
quietness of some Sabbath evening,
and in that hour ripe for meditation,
by some supernatural power God
should bring before your eyes all the
results Of the whisky made by you.
From the tent of the far-away Indian,
from the hamlets on the verge of civil
ization, from the villages far and near,
from vale and hillside, from dens of
vice and lairs of crime, from the adul-
terer's chamber and from the murder
er's haunt, would come trooping to
your eye all the CHASTITY disfgure-
ments of abominable iniquity-each
impersonated evil as it fitted past
would point at you its withered hand
and cry: "Thou art my authorr'
Crimes would hail you All the hid
eous temptations that do destroy men
would bow to you and cry out in
hoarse tones: "Hail! my parent"
And would not your own conscience,
breaking its prison doors where it has
been immured, join; and loudest,
sharpest, most authoritative of them
all, summon you to meet that God on
whose creatures you have not ceased
to pour that destroying stream from
the disti!lery?
Oh, sir, your heart surely is not
turned to stone; you yet, would fain
believe, have hours of reflection and of
conscience-stricken forebodings. Ithen
appeal to you as man, as Christian,
to desist from this most detestable,
most accused traffic. BY all the mis-
cry which it works, by all the tears
which it draws from orphanage and
widowhood, by the misrule and de-
bauch which it spreads, by the violence,
by the fate of those who by it are
brought down to the grave, by all
sweet affections blighted, and hopes
smitten, by your hatred of crime and
your detestation of vice, by your re-
gard orreligion, for your own account
in that awful and impending hour, [ be-
seech you to stop this nefarious business,
to put out those fires which are burn
ing soul and body. Once more return
to the church in your right mind. Dis
miss that fatal idea with which Satan
has cajoled you, that you shall make
gain by distilling. God is against you.
His providence will turn your ways
upside down. Money got by unjust
ways is Gods sharpest curse upon the
getter. 1t will eat you like cankel.
Your gold will sweat blood in your
hands, or it will distill it on your chill
dren. If you pursue this course, after
perhaps short and Elusive prosperity,
you will stumble headlongin your way,
with temporal and eternal ruin.
But is money the only thing that a
nation wants? Would a nation of rich
slaves be enviable? Could all the bow
els of the earth afford gold enough to
pay us for our laws. our freedom, our
honest industry, our schools, colleges
and churches?
The money made by immoral means
is worse than counterfeit. 1t damns
the men, and will damn the people that
love it. appeal to every honest man
to say which are the best for land,
honest poor mon OF rich scoundrels?
Distilleries make us rich? Why so
would smuggling, and piracy, and free
booting, in just the same way. At first
they would roll in money, and at last
roll in damaation: Here is a neigh
borhood with hundred farmers; they
own, on an average, eighty acres
apiece; they are out of debt; if they
lay up no money, they lose none; all
their children go to school; they are at
peace with each other, and happy. A
distillery is built in their midst; they
grow rich and corrupt; churches are
suffered to rot down and school-houses
are used to store grain in; nothing can
stand before their lust of money; they
have sacrificed the conscience in
patronizing a distillery for the sake Of
money, and it will not be hard to sacri-
fee conscience in any other way for
the sake of money They are greedy,
unprineipled set of farmers scrabbling
to be rich Let any man say if we
should owe thanks to distilleries for
such riches!-Why. every dollar that
poisons a mans honesty is messen-
ger from the devil sent=ss bride him to